i wore time like a dress
by jackiekennedy
Summary: And he waits for her in every life. So does she. It's just a matter of who runs into who first, who wins this round. Puck and Quinn as the personification of Love and Death, aka Puck/Quinn equals Love/Death.


_This originally was not written as Puck/Quinn, but after rereading I thought, why not? It could fit... if you squint. I've just always enjoyed femme fatale Quinn and tragic hero Puck. Story is much like the summary: Quinn and Puck as the human-like personifications of Death and Love. It's like if the Grim Reaper and Cupid had Quinn and Puck's faces, respectively, as well as some sexual chemistry (because duh!). Anywhoo, enjoy! _

* * *

It is early August.

She finds him behind an elementary school eating sesame crackers out of a bag. He doesn't look up, just crumples the bag into his front pocket and sighs, "Today is the day, isn't it?"

She does not smile, just shrugs and strikes a bullet through his heart.

It is dark like the fleeing night and it collapses everything in a brilliant spectacle that lights up the sky like a set of artfully cast fireworks of red and pink and orange. He feels the cold take flight from his bones the way a shot of vodka makes its way through his veins. Ironically, it feels like a celebration, the screams of people burning sounding more like a series of notes on an organ instead of death.

Bombs continue to fall over Hiroshima.

* * *

We hear about them sometimes, in the streets as we walk past, the tales people tell about them and their sickness and their hearts that thirsts only for power in the game that they play against each other. But their names are only a pair of words like any other, like "love" and "death," and though you will often hear them said in conjunction to each other, there is no special weight to them, no meaning.

Because they aren't mythical figures. They're real and people believe in them the way that some believe in gravity and that if you run in front of a moving train it will run you over.

* * *

They do not always have to be within proximity of each other, but they always exist at the same time, the same place.

He walks into the bar, runs his fingers over the tables and catches the dirt on his finger tips. He sits and orders an old-fashioned and starts picking people at random. Blonde with a brunette. Dark skin with light skin. Old with young. Male with female or female with female or male with male. There's no real technique. It's all in his mind, he supposes, who is supposed to be with who. And it works because he says so, and he leaves them some gift – a token – red roses or butterflies in the stomach or a shy kiss on the cheek. He gives them what they need the most and nothing more; then he leaves them alone.

They're all the same. Some could be beautiful and most are not but they are all human.

He is about to leave the bar when he hears someone fall, a pitcher of glass shattering on the floor, liquid spilling, and the sounds of sirens screeching 911.

He remembers the dirt his fingers picked up.

He should have known she was always there watching. Waiting.

* * *

Time does not happen in chronological order for them, but that hardly matters.

In Salem she slips a knife between his 4th and 5th rib and twists it carefully, feeling his insides cling and release around the metal like a vine crawling up an old brick building. He smiles almost sadly and lets out a noise that sounds too similar to satisfaction.

Five convicted witches are hung that next morning.

* * *

"Why do you not fear me?"

They are still young.

"I do not fear the known."

"So you know me?"

"Death is known. Everyone knows they will die someday. But," the curve of his lip quirks up, "no one knows if they'll fall in love."

* * *

She looks like a child when she sleeps, but he doesn't let that fool him. Walk by a prison at night, and you'd think it's filled with saints.

But this girl is a gun.

* * *

She is kinder during the winter. Gentler.

She does not like the cold and does not want to subject him to the cold.

She is apologetic in the only way she knows how. She places a warm kiss on his forehead before pressing a gun against it. When she pulls the trigger, he falls over, burrows his head into her neck, and kisses it.

* * *

In Buckenwald she keeps him away from the gas chambers. She watches him starve instead, the whites of his eyes slowly waste away, impassive to his fading body.

He cannot work like this.

She is sometimes kind during the winter, but not always.

* * *

She always looks the same. She is always slender and blonde and terrible.

He changes but only slightly. Sometimes the color of his hair, the size of his ears, his entire height, his accent.

But he could change every single thing about himself and she would still know.

And he waits for her in every life. So does she. It's just a matter of who runs into who first.

Who wins this round.

* * *

It hurts the first time.

"You don't talk very much, do you?"

She uses a sharp rock in response. It is dull and thick and so _slow _and he vows afterwards, after the sand of the desert has swallowed him up, that he'll do everything in his power to keep his distance from her.

But avoiding her, he'll learn soon enough, is like a magnet trying to avoid a pull of another; impossible.

* * *

"Do you remember that first time?"

She sharpens her sword in silence.

"You were so angry then."

"No," she does not pause. "I wanted revenge."

She slices his neck and watches the red thread wind itself out of his mouth into a bloody smile.

Gladiators fight. People are crucified. It rains ash and skin in Pompeii.

* * *

It was the Soviet Union then. She lifts her burgundy dress up to her knees and swings them out the window. She has skin tanned like bourbon and fine lips that speak wiser than most, and she has a body, a slight frame of bones that he keeps his heart in.

He leans against the door frame. "You seem happy."

"New communist dictator," she says. "Good for business. You know."

She uses a rope this time.

* * *

She will live until there is nothing left to kill.

He will live until there is no one left to feel love.

So the punch line is he can only _really_ die when she dies.

But that's it, isn't? There are no rules, no laws, no mandate on how to handle these kind of things. Open an anatomy book, and which page do you turn for the section on soul?

The human brain has fifty-billion neurons with some thousand-trillion synaptic connections passing signals throughout. No one has ever said any of these had to be about love.

* * *

Ever since the guillotine, she's been acting like a child with a new toy.

"You should really leave the monarchies alone," he sighs.

She forces him to pull the trigger on himself, and it's a warning not to critique her business.

* * *

He stares at the young man with cherub cheeks making eyes at the long-legged girl. He gives them the little push they need, a drop of a basket and hands scrambling to pick things up. A laugh and a smile as the two walk away together.

He's surprised when she peaks out of the shadow, her hair wrapped in a dark purple scarf. She's early.

He manages one more coupling before she pulls him to the outskirts of the village. She frowns but does not say I'm sorry.

He knows instantly this is the worst one in a long time. She's brought a new disease to Africa with no way to fix it.

It's the first time he's ever yelled at her, and it's the first time she lets him.

* * *

"You know they've started making movies about you? They call you the femme fatale."

She's not sure if she likes this.

He drinks Kool Aid in Jonestown.

* * *

He does not like D.C. because he does not like politics. Before D.C. it was London and before London it was Rome and before Rome it was this and that, but they're all the same. Still, he visits and buys daisies from a street vendor.

He scatters them among the monuments, and the sun goes down quickly. She's near.

Monuments for soldiers, for leaders, for heroes. Monuments for the dead.

Monuments for her.

She approaches him in a black pantsuit and folds back the cuffs to her elbows, and he stares at her wrists, but there's nothing proprietary in his gaze. How could there be? A man can't own the very thing that makes him. Can't love his own soul, the breath in his lungs, the blood in his heart.

"Republican this time. Terrorism and such... I suppose."

He nods like he understands.

This city is hers. Maybe the world is hers, too.

* * *

She is almost playful in the summer. They're in San Francisco, with sometimes flowers in her hair. "When you finally die, your death will change everything."

"Yours too." She pauses. "I mean, all of them."

She nearly laughs. It sounds the way humans don't, sounds that fill his ears like coins, rich and full as the sun makes slow progress around the earth.

* * *

It is hot for December in Oahu.

She is not on the ship but rather on the streets, a much better viewing spot. Suddenly, there's an eerie screech of tires against pavement and she feels the impact on the back of her shoulders where he has pushed her out of the way.

There is a dull thud of his body when it falls to the ground and the sound of a cars breaking quickly and he peaks through the flowing crimson to see a look of surprise in her features. Then it turns to rage.

She sends planes to Pearl Harbor on the 7th instead.

* * *

She was there first, and she remembers the beginning. What it was like before.

Then the loudness that came with him. The pain as well. Everything else came with him.

This is some kind of justification for punishment.

* * *

She had a vial of arsenic ready in Oahu.

She always has that vial, always has a back up plan.

* * *

If a story is made up of a thousand moments left out of the final version then his is composed of every night spent on his knees praying that everyone would live to see beyond tomorrow before she decides to crash down and burn them.

He should know that when gods answer prayers, they always take more than you're willing to give.

He should know this more than anyone. Her too.

* * *

He wakes up again on a Friday. The weekend has just started.

He orders coffee in Mumbai and walks to the park. He watches a couple get engaged.

A newspaper on a bench reads, "_12 Dead from Gang-Related Violence_."

She's already one step ahead of him, but he knows she's still here, waiting for him. Waiting to be noticed. She will not leave until he's found her or until she's found him.

Either way, they always find each other.

Maybe the world is actually his.

* * *

The above is not really their love story. It's how they pass time.

* * *

_Thanks for reading! Another plug that I have a new tumblr: lukescoolhand. Come say hi! Hope you enjoyed, and comments are always welcomed!_


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